Creating a meal plan can be a challenge for beginners and advanced trainees alike, and whether it’s designed for weight loss or muscle gain. Honestly, I am not surprised as there are countless fad diets and nutritional strategies circulating on the internet, making it baffling for those who have never really looked into this world. Self-proclaimed nutritionists and DIY dietitians say silly things and attach ”healthy diet” labels to absolute nonsense. I am pretty sure you have heard things like ”juice cleanse” and ”detox diet”, as well as methods where you can only eat different leaves for days, then only fruits for days, then only this for days, and only that for days. It is very sad that plans like these exist, as those who have been trying different methods will try these fads as well in desperation, because everyone has a friend who lost weight with one of the magic diets. What’s good for them isn’t necessarily good for you.

None of the creators of these fads would say that, with these diets, the sudden weight loss is mostly water (due to the depletion of carb storages, as every gram of carbs (glycogen) has 3-4g of water bound to it) or, if it’s not water-related weight loss, then it is due to the fact that following any kind of diet will force the person to monitor the amount of food they eat, so they will restrict themselves… and this is the main reason for the weight loss! The main determinant of weight loss/gain is our energy balance, so the amount of food we eat in case of a diet. To be clear, I am not talking about abnormal cases where some kind of hormonal issue is in the background – however, the number of these cases is really low. From this point of view fads could be useful but, let’s be honest, it is not really likely that we do any good to our system if we drink, let’s say, cabbage juice only for days. This is without mentioning the fact that it makes a difference if the weight loss comes from our fat storages or from our muscles.

So, the main determinant of our weight loss/gain is the amount of food we eat (assuming that we don’t change our physical activity). I don’t necessarily mean daily intake, but rather weekly or monthly intake, as nobody loses weight straight away after eating a bit less for a day or so.

Certainly the quality of the food is also important, as it makes a difference if we take the same amount in from Nutella or broccoli.

In the following section, I will introduce you to two different methods to calculate your daily intake and create a meal plan for yourself, which supports your goals and yours alone. The first method is amazingly useful for those whose goal is to create a plan which can help you achieve a healthy body weight, without complicated calculations and calorie tables.The second method goes on a little bit and could be used by those who have other goals in mind and want to take their body transformation to another level.

Method One

Using this method, your measuring tool will be your hand! It is always there with you, proportionate to your body, and its size never changes – perfect!

Step 3. – Carbohydrates (grains, starches, beans, fruits, etc.)

Step 4. – Fats (oils, butters, nut butters, nuts and seeds)

Using this method, with 3-4 meals a day, women would consume about 1200-1500 calories and men about 2300-3000 calories.

You can individualise this plan, if needed.

For active women, 4-6 portions from each food group 1500-2100 calories

For active men, 6-8 portions from each food group 2500 – 3100 calories

If you need more because you:

are larger in stature

aren’t feeling satisfied at meals

eat less frequently throughout the day

are very active

are trying to gain muscle

aren’t getting any muscle-gain results

Then…

For men, start adding a portion of carbs and/or a portion of fats to some of your meals.

For women, start adding half a portion of carbs and/or half a portion of fats to some of your meals.

If you need less because you:

are smaller in stature

are feeling full at meals

eat more frequently throughout the day

are not very active

are trying to lose weight

aren’t getting weight-loss results

Then…

For men, start removing a portion of carbs and/or a portion of fats from some of your meals.

For women, start removing half a portion of carbs and/or half a portion of fats from some of your meals.

Method Two

Step 1 – Calculation of daily calorie needs

(You can skip this step if you already know your daily requirements.)

There are different ways to calculate this (like Harris-Benedict, Sterling-Pasmore formula) but experience shows that those are not really accurate, so I will present you with a short chart to use for your calculations.

Client goal

Weight loss

Weight maintenance

Weight gain

Multiply bodyweight in kgs by

Sedentary (minimal exercise)

22-26

26-31

35-40

Moderately active (3-4 times a week)

26-31

31-35

40-44

Very active (5-7 times a week)

31-35

35-40

44-48

Let’s see an example for how to calculate daily energy needs.

Our example is a gentleman who wants to lose weight, and does some form of physical activity three times a week, one hour duration per session. He is a waiter in a restaurant.

In his case, we will multiply his bodyweight by an amount between 26 and 31, so his daily calorie needs will be somewhere around 2080-2480 calories. Which value will we use? On training days, we will use the higher (2480) number and on non-training days, the lower (2080) value.

Step 2 – Proportion of macronutrients

After we have calculated our daily needs, all we will have to do is decide how much to consume from each macronutrient (protein, carbs and fat).

The proportion of these will depend mostly on the body type, goal and individual particularities, but as a starting point we can use the following numbers:

Let’s assume that the waiter used in the example for Method One has a mesomorph body type. As a side note, these classifications are not clear either, and in many cases there is an overlap between the main categories, so you should always choose the one best describing you, even if it is not a perfect description.

So, the waiter’s training day meal plan…

Total calories: 2480

Protein: 30%

Carbs: 40%

Fat: 30%

For the calculations, we need to know that 1g of protein contains (approximately) 4 calories, 1g of carbohydrate also 4 calories, and 1g of fat 9 calories. According to these, the daily amounts are the following:

Protein: 2480 (daily calories) x 0.3 (30% protein) = 744 calories

744/4 (calories in 1g of protein) = 186 à he should consume 186g of protein daily.

We use the same method for the carbs and fats too:

Carbs: 2480 x 0.4 = 992/4 = 248

Fats: 2480 x 0.3 = 744/9 = ~83g

So, on training days:

Protein: 186g

Carbs: 248g

Fats: 83g

Now we need to decide how many meals a day he will have.

Let’s stay in the grounds of reality and calculate it as four meals a day. All we need to do is divide these numbers by four, so we get the amounts for each meal.

Protein: 46.5g

Carbs: 62g

Fats: ~21g

Using the amounts above, let’s work out how much of certain foods our waiter should eat. I will make it simple this time and use chicken breast and brown rice.

We will need a kitchen scale and we will weigh everything raw/dry.

The official data says that 100g of chicken breast contains 25-30g protein. We will use the lower value, as our chicken breast may have some added water – this is where the quality of your ingredients can be important. We need 46.5g of protein from chicken breast, so 46/25 = 1.84×100 = 184. We need 184g of raw chicken breast to cover our needs for 46.5g of protein. Let’s also note that the chicken breast has some fat too (3-4g per 100g) besides the protein, so our 184g of breast already adds ~7g of fat to the menu.

We need 62g of carbs form brown rice.

100g of brown rice (depending on the type) contains about 50g of carbs. Always check the label on the packaging for the exact numbers. We need 62g of carbs from the rice, so 62/50 = 1.21×100 = 121.

We need 121g of dry brown rice. We don’t really care about the rice’s weight after we cook it, as we already know what is in it.

Only the fats part left, and we need 20g of that. We already have 7g form the chicken breast, so we only need 13g. If we marinated or brushed the breast with some oil before we cooked, then that amount will probably cover our needs. If we just grilled it without any marinade, then we can make some nice leafy salad as a side dish and drizzle it with a small spoonful of olive oil.

There you go. Done and with great macros.

We can have the same meals (same macros) for every meal as the most important factor is the total intake, but if we have a bit more serious goals (like a fitness competition) then the timing could be the next important determinant. In that case, we can divide the total daily carbs amount in a way that we consume 2/3 of the total amount before and after our training session, and the remaining smaller portion could be consumed in the separate other meals.

The method above is absolutely suitable for a basic meal plan. As I mentioned earlier, we can try to make the most precise calculation, but it will only ever be approximate until you know how much it will need to be adjusted according to your body’s response.

Of course, individual goals, attributes and life situations can change up the whole plan however, as a basic concept, the method above can be applied perfectly.

How to save years of your time spent on training

When I first started lifting weights and shaping my body, which was nearly 20 years ago, I had almost no clue what I had to do. At the age of around 17-18 I was really skinny and tall, and got a nickname from my lovely classmates in high school: Matchstick. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t really flattering. In the last year of high school, sometimes in PE classes, I had the chance to use an old bench for some bench presses. As you can imagine, it wasn’t effective at all but at least something had started.

Later, whilst at university, I managed to start working out at a higher level. This was when I bought my first tub of creatine (I remember the day clearly, when we were sitting in the room splitting the magical powder into two equal portions, using a spoon, with my roommate Steve). The university had a gym which exceeded all my expectations – it wasn’t difficult, as I didn’t really have any expectations to start off with.

In every PE class I asked for permission from Mr. Teacher to use the gym. He didn’t really like the idea of it because, in his world, lifting weights just to shape your body was something pointless. He was more worried about making someone, for example, a better swimmer, and felt weights had no impact on this. I remember when we started the kayaking season, and we had to take an exam from swimming. I was the last one to finish the 200m and Mr. Teacher was encouraging me loudly from the side of the pool, walking up and down. He may have been encouraging, but he was still making it clear that going to the gym didn’t make you better in kayaking and so on. I didn’t agree…

After university, at my first real workplace, which had a well-equipedd gym, I finally had the chance to go on with my training and experimenting. I tried loads of different supplements and dieting strategies. The dieting was key – there was a time when I used to eat lots of junk food, with my personal best being six cheeseburgers in one go. Of course, there was a result: 110kg bodyweight…not so lean. I also had to manage general life situations, finding the time and energy to train.

I had learned a lot in those years, and it was all stuff which couldn’t be gained from magazines and books. Nowadays you literally have the humanity’s whole knowledge in your pocket to access anytime, but this was before the age of gadgets. Here is a list of the key elements I learned back then (and have been learning every day since). I hope you can use this to your own benefit, so you don’t need to spend time on finding these out on your own, as I did.

1. Consistency, persistence

When we talk about weight loss, muscle gain or shaping the body in any way, one thing is for sure: you won’t see results overnight. Those fat pillows around your belly didn’t appear suddenly, and those muscular guys in the gym haven’t only been training for a month. Be patient and give some time to yourself. In order to start seeing improvements or to step up to the next level , you can’t afford any skipped sessions. Staying out all night (not to mention drinking) or days when you ‘don’t have time’ to do what needs to be done just won’t get you the results you’re hoping for.

Sit down and think about your next week – plan ahead! Plan your daily, weekly or even monthly schedule. Find those times to fit in to your schedule and work out what will be an effective training plan.

As a start, 2-3 days a week is fine. Book yourself in for those times and don’t let anyone to distract you. Those are your moments, and you owe it to yourself to use those hours productively. If you seriously think that you don’t have time, just think about those times when you just watch tv or play around with your phone… Honestly! Most people don’t even realise how much time they spend like that. When you catch yourself doing anything like this, just ask yourself ‘what is my intention by doing this and how does this support my goals?’ You will be able to answer these questions easily…

2. Attitude

First of all, training yourself is not obligatory. You don’t HAVE to do it. Nobody will force you to go to the gym against your will. What you need to understand is that this is not an obligation. It is a favour that you are doing for yourself. I know that every begininng is difficult, be it training, dieting or creating a system which works for you, but I guarantee that those difficulties in the beginning will quickly turn into enthusiasm as soon as you see/feel the first signs of your progression. From then on, there will be no tiredness, you won’t be influenced by all kinds of circumstances, and you’ll have no excuses. The tiredness will disappear after the first couple of minutes once you get to the gym, the cold/hot will make you prouder after you finish your session because you did it regardless of the temperature, and you will also realise that the illness was just something you imagined. When I do intervals (which in my case means sprints alternating with walking), on the peak of the high intensity period when it hurts the most, I always smile because I was given this lucky opportinity to have the ability to do something like this. I know, for sure, that some of us would be extremely happy just to be able to walk. Think about this when you are looking for your excuses why not to train!

3. The changing of your training plan

If you can describe your sessions as ‘I NORMALLY do this exercise on my chest day…’, ‘I NORMALLY use this weight…’, ‘I NORMALLY do this and this number of sets and reps’, then you can be sure that you have found one the most important factors which holds you back.

You always have to change something in order to give a new challange to your body. If you can accomplish four sets of eight squats, using 50kg, and it has been three months doing this, then it is time to move on. If your first exercise is always bench press on your chest day, then you should try something else.

In order to be able to take a good look at your session and progression so you can plan ahead, you need to track your sessions. Guessing is not enough. ‘As I remember, last time I used 20kg… ‘ is not good enough. ‘Last time I used 20kg and in the first set I could do 14, in the 2nd 10 and in the 3rd 7, with this tempo, having this amount of rest time between sets’ is much better. You can build on this, but it’s a good basis to start from.

Start writing everything down. You can use just pen and paper, or you can download some applications (Trainerize, Jefit, Gym Buddy) to your smartphone. This is essential for you to be able to build an effective training plan. You can also print THIS out, which is what I use with my clients.

This is the foundation of an effective training program.

4. Proper form

The proper form and all the details about it could make a nice novel on its own. For now, if your primary goal is to shape your body, then during your workouts your focus is definitely not on the pointless moving of the heaviest weights, regardless of what muscles you use for that movement. Your main goal is to contract certain muscles, and the movement is only a by-product of the contraction. The ability to contract muscles is a skill that you need to learn and, unfortunately, this doesn’t happen overnight. The best thing you can do is to ask for help from a professional. This way you can save months or even years on your progression.

I also need to add that those athletes whose main goal is not the shaping of their bodies use different principles, and for them the movement itself is much more important than the contracting muscle.

5. Diet

Your diet is probably the most important building block in the process of your body transformation. Although it is the most important, it’s not as complicated as it seems from the huge variety of fad diets and ads of the newest magic pills.

Let’s make this very simple.

Take a look in the mirror and/or measure yourself (girth measurements, weight, etc). Start tracking your diet. The amount and quality of the food you eat casues your body to look like it is now, shown by the mirror and numbers. Change something – mostly the quantity but the quality is important too. Take a look in the mirror/measure yourself again a week later. If you can see changes in the right direction then go on, if there is no change at all (or there is but in the wrong direction), then try to change something else. Of course, professional help can save you loads of time here too, but nobody will be able to tell you straight away what to eat or how much exactly. There are guidelines and calculations that you or a professional can use, but everyone is different and, as this is your body and doesn’t necessarily want to follow the same rules, so some adjustment will be needed.

To track your diet, again, you can use pen and paper, or there are smartphone applications, like MyFitnessPal, which can make your life much easier.

6. Adequate rest

Your body won’t improve during your sessions, but it’ll happen when you sleep. More is not always better when it comes to the number of sessions you do. A lot of people make the mistake of trying to rush the results, so they train every day, or even more than once a day. This, in most cases, is not only futile but detrimental. Don’t try to follow the newest Schwarzenegger’s training plan (authentically written, obviously, by him) from the internet. Even if it was a genuine plan from him, it probably wouldn’t work for you, as you are not him genetically and regarding any other circumstances, right?

Have a plan, earphones in, and hit the gym! Instead of chatting with your friends, do a fast, intense session and then shoot home, eat and rest! If you take a look at those guys in the gym, who are in top form, you will realise that they do exactly this…

If you seriously consider everything in the list above and act, you can save years from your training progression.

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This recipe is the homemade version of the popular and extremely delicious Hungarian dessert, Turo Rudi.

It is not only delicious but also works as a high-protein, healthy treat and fits beautifully to my cottage cheese-series.

Ingredients (approx. 8-10 portions)

– 250g 0% fat cottage cheese

– lemon zest from a whole, unwaxed/untreated lemon

– vanilla extract

– 4 teaspoonful of gelatin (~10g)

– 0.5dl water

– 1.5 tablespoonful of Truvia (stevia-sweetener)

– 250g dark chocolate

1. In a bowl, mix together the cottage cheese, vanilla extract, lemon zest and stevia

2. Add water to the gelatin and let it absorb the water.

3. Melt the gelatin. In a microwave it takes just a couple of seconds, so be careful and do not overheat it.

4. Add the melted gelatin to the cottage cheese mixture and stir it in thoroughly

5. Put the mixture in the fridge and cool it for at least 30 mins

6. After the 30 mins cooling you can start shaping the mixture. The original Turo Rudi is bar-shaped but if it is too difficult to form nice bar-shapes then don’t worry too much about it and do as it is the easiest for you (this is what I did…)

7. Cover a tray with greaseproof paper and place the bars on it. Put the tray in the freezer to let them cool down properly before covering them with melted chocolate.

8. Start melting the chocolate.

9. Cover an other tray with greaseproof paper and make similarly shaped hot chocolate patches on the paper as your cottage cheese portions. You will place your cottage cheese bars/balls on these before fully covering them with chocolate.

10. Cover the bars with chocolate and put them back to the fridge for a short while to make the chocolate solid and crunchy again.

11. Done. Enjoy and give some to your friends. They will love them and you! 🙂

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If you have made a training plan, you have the cycles that you would go through, you track your meals/nutrition, then you might understand what else is missing. If you are not a good eater (which is pretty often the case with beginners), then you would see by now, that you won’t be able to take in all the necessary daily calories from only ’clean food sources’. This is when a ’weight gainer’ can be handy. Weight gainers normally have plenty of carbs beside proteins. If you can take in enough calories but you struggle getting sufficient amount of protein from solid food, then you can use protein powders to complement your meal plan.

How much should you take? This is why you should keep track on all your meals and write a meal/nutrition diary. You will find the nutrition information label on every packs. You will see how much carbohydrate/protein/fat the powder contain and you can calculate the amount you need according to your meal plan. If you are to increase or decrease your calorie intake, then the simpliest way to do this is by supplements.

So, the basic supplements are:

Supplements containing carbs – weight gainers, the protein content of these powders is 5-35% They can help to get those extra calories needed when trying to gain weight. As weight gainers mostly have simply sugars, consume them moderately and try to get the majority of your carbs from solid foods

Supplements containing proteins – protein content is min.60%. They are suitable to complement either ’bulking’ or ’cutting’ diets. One of the most important properties of protein powders is biological value, which is a measure of the proportion of absorbed protein from a food which becomes incorporated into the proteins of the body. Plant proteins are, in this regard, are poorer than animal protein sources. One of the highest biological value protein source is whey protein. When choosing a protein powder you should also consider the possible food allergies. If someone has soy, egg or milk allergy, then they have to choose other protein sources.

Other supplements:

Vitamins, mineral supplements – micro nutrients which can’t be manufactured by our body (in most cases), so we need to take them in with our nutrition. While a bodybuilder’s diet can be pretty strict regarding the food choices, but at the same time, their body is under constant, huge stress from training, the application of these supplements is highly recommended

Amino acids – proteins are actually chains of amino acids. Complex amino acids are, simply put, encapsulated/ tableted protein powders (sometimes altered a bit, like enzimatic pre-digestion). So, when do we need them? When it is convenient…when we can’t bring a freezer-bag with us, or when we can’t make a protein shake, we are still able to pop in some amino tablets. There are two types of individual amino acids which are more important from a body builder’s point of view: glutamine and bcaas (isoleucine, leucine, valine). Glutamine helps the faster recovery of muscles after training, and bcaas helps preserve muscle mass during training.

Creatine – This is the safest and most effective supplement available today to build muscles (Naturally, creatine alone doesn’t build muscles, you need a proper diet and a training program)

Other supplements such as plant extracts, individual amino acids, different other natural nutrients and molecules, in the form of tablets, caplets, liquids or powder These supplements can help provided you have your diet sorted and you follow a progressive training plan. I have to dissapoint you, there are no magic pills for fat loss or muscle gain. First you have to build a diet plan and also, a training plan which can support your goals. As long as you don’t have these sorted there is absolutely no point of using supplements. There are certain supplements, for example for joint health, skin care, which are beneficial (and maybe healthy too), but if you don’t have the basics, then these won’t make any difference towards reaching your goals.

Other factors:

There are two very important factors to mention: adequate fluid intake and sufficient sleep.

Fluid intake is extremely important for everyone, especially for athletes. In case of body builders, it is not only important because of sweating but also because of the by-products of the extra food and nutrient intake as water is needed for the detoxification process in the body. How much and what is the optimal fluid intake? At least 2-4 liters of water daily (even more for advanced athletes). For the novice trainees, who don’t drink water consciously, it can sound a lot.

Hint: do it gradually. Grab a bottle of water and bring it with you and drink it all. In 1-2 weeks you should get to a point where you drink two bottles of water a day. High intake of protein is necessary for muscle building but this high intake can also stress the kidneys hence you have to drink as much as possible. Remember, your body is trying to get back to the state of homeostasis and you are trying to divert it from it…so drink!

Rest. No, bodybuilding doesn’t get along with partying, drinking, smoking and drugs. These all work against homeostasis and your body will try compensate these by self-regulation, which needs energy and this energy will come from the energy that could be used for progression, musclebuilding and adaptation. If you are serious about this sport, then you will quit smoking, stop drinking and partying (or at least minimise the number of occasions). After an intense training session your muscles, your nervous system, your metabolism need time and energy to recover. Hence you need to rest/sleep. You need at least 7-8 hours of sleep daily and in an ideal world you could have a 1-1.5h nap during the day as well. Not everyone can cope with tough sessions every day. Take a day off from training and have a rest day. If you need more than one day, rest more days. Pay attention to the signs of ovetraining.

Continuous training and permanent attention to diet is exhausting mentally as well. It is essential to be able to recover mentally. The success of a bodybuilder is not decied in the gym, nor in the kitchen but in the head. Make the decisions you need for your success, in the gym: weights, form, progression and in the kitchen: no junk food, no garbage, whole, nutritious food coupled with good timing but at the same time you need the ability to relax, to have a break and fill your life with other things too. There is life beyond your body (and the love of your body)…

Possible scenarios

The question of the amount of muscles gained in a week, in a month or in a year is always asked. Nobody can tell the answer to this question. Reading this short summary it should be obvious, there is no exact solution or formula to calculate it. Genetical factors such as training (technique, quantity, training system, level of the trainee, etc.), nutrition, supplements, timing, psychological factors, rest (mostly sleep), illnesses can all influence the extent of your potential for progression.

In reality, an absolute beginner who starts eating properly and trains hard can achieve 0,5-1kg gains/week for months, in case of superb genetics. An average-built person can be satisfied enough with 0,5-1kg gains monthly in the first year. If someone is not so lucky genetically, then they may struggle to gain 1-2kg a year.

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This is a healthier version of the classic baked cottage cheese pasta (probably Eastern European origin).

I swapped sugar for stevia, butter for coconut oil, normal pasta for protein pasta and also, I added some extra protein to it. You can serve it as a dessert or even a main course. You can change the ingredients according to your goals and macro-targets.

Ingredients (8 portions):

200g Protein pasta (Myprotein)

30g Impact whey protein (Myprotein, unflavoured)

30g Egg white protein powder (Myprotein, unflavoured)

75g black sultanas

825g 0% fat cottage cheese

180g 12% fat sour cream

8 whole medium eggs

50g Truvia (stevia-sweetener)

50g extra-virgin coconut oil

vanilla extract

tiny amount of butter to grease the baking tray

minced almonds

Cooking instructions:

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the label (in slightly salty water, for 10-12 mins), drain it and set it aside

Stir together all the ingredients, except coconut oil.

Melt the coconut oil and pour it onto the pasta, mixed them thoroughly together and then add it to the previously mixed ingredients and also mixed them together.